{"id":64226,"date":"2023-12-06T07:40:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T06:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=64226"},"modified":"2025-07-02T09:35:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:35:18","slug":"how-big-agriculture-borrowing-big-oil-playbook-cop28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/64226\/how-big-agriculture-borrowing-big-oil-playbook-cop28\/","title":{"rendered":"How Big Agriculture is borrowing Big Oil’s playbook at COP28"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you haven\u2019t been following food and agriculture developments at COP28, then you might not know that this year\u2019s COP has been dubbed as the first \u201cFood COP\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

Food systems are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions<\/a>, and they are rarely subjected to scrutiny. But food-related emissions are finally under the spotlight at the annual climate negotiations, to complement actions on the much-needed fossil fuel phase out.<\/p>\n\n

A quick snapshot: 57% of GHGs associated with agricultural production<\/a> are caused by animal farming. Livestock production accounts for roughly 32% of methane emissions<\/a>, a \u201csuperheater\u201d greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20 year period. Reducing it in the next 7 years gives us a real chance at slowing down and limiting climate chaos. <\/p>\n\n

So you would think that meat and dairy companies that drive these emissions on an industrial scale should be feeling the heat at the \u201cFood COP\u201d. Instead, they\u2019re being given the main stage to lay out how they should be allowed to continue their harmful activities.<\/p>\n\n

\"Cattle
After a day in the pasture, the cattle is moved by drovers back to the ranch in Castanheira, in Mato Grosso, Brazil
\u00a9 Bruno Kelly \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

How Big Ag works at COP <\/h2>\n\n

Multilateral meetings like the COP are increasingly infiltrated by corporate interests showcasing high profile announcements and climate initiatives at side meetings rife with greenwashing<\/a>. This trend is justified by \u201cmultistakeholderism<\/a>\u201d, an approach to policy-making that allows companies to participate in decision-making processes, even when conflicts of interest arise between climate action and corporate profits. The scope of solutions is as a result inevitably narrowed towards market-friendly interventions and voluntary initiatives rather than robust measures that involve state regulations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The Oil and Gas industry has been widely documented using this tactic through infiltrating climate meetings<\/a>, ultimately trying to steer the global community away from <\/a>meaningful action. Big Ag (big agribusiness corporations that wield outsized power in the food system) is using the exact same playbook<\/a>. At COP28, agri-businesses are going all out<\/a> to dominate the narratives on food systems transition. Multinational food corporations are headlining at numerous events, sponsoring pavilions<\/a>, and even working in close partnership with the COP28 Presidency\u2019s Agenda on Food Systems<\/a>. Their motto seems to be, the more in the spotlight the better.<\/p>\n\n

The solutions they promote mostly focus on boosting carbon sequestration through ‘regenerative agriculture’ and enhancing farming innovation<\/a> for greater efficiency. None of these approaches would require a reduction in production levels, none of them calls into question Big Ag’s flawed model of industrial agriculture that is failing our global food system<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\"Dairy
This dairy factory farm near the town of Caparroso, Spain, has multiple rows where the calves are kept, without the possibility to move around and deprived of any contact with their mothers. According to official numbers, in November 2018 the farm had 5,531 adult cows, 60% more than was authorized.
\u00a9 Tania Garnica \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The \u201cFood COP\u201d rightly puts the spotlight on the link between food production and the climate. But it\u2019s unthinkable that the biggest emitters in that sector, hiding in plain sight, get to run the show. Some of the companies involved are part of a cluster of 15 meat and dairy companies which together are estimated to have a methane footprint as large as Russia, Canada, Australia and Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Although food system transition is not part of the negotiations this year, the space given to Big Ag\u2019s narrative on food systems pretty much everywhere else (especially in comparison to the space given to small farmholders, fisherfolks and Indigenous Peoples) means that they will dominate the narrative<\/a> on solutions to food system emissions. We must not allow this to happen.<\/p>\n\n

\"Protest
In a meadow near the Avel Vor farm, in Landunvez, France, volunteers highlight the deleterious consequences of factory farming, the need to put an end to it, and to defend farming without agro-industry.
\u00a9 Marie Sebire \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The action we need <\/h2>\n\n

The fact that big agro-businesses are controlling the narrative at COP does not mean it\u2019s game over. Once international climate conferences end, politicians go home, and that\u2019s when the real work on food systems begins. <\/p>\n\n

For this commitment to become a reality, leaders must go beyond the rhetoric of Big Ag and plan a just transition that takes account of the food system as a whole. Governments must also include civil society organisations, consumer groups, Indigenous Peoples, scientists and, of course, farmers, in order to chart a course away from climate-wrecking industrial agriculture.<\/p>\n\n

Decision makers need to adopt ambitious solutions and set themselves specific targets for different GHGs, such as methane or nitrous oxide. One essential starting point is to halt the expansion of new animal factory farms<\/a>. Where there are patterns of overconsumption of meat and dairy products (predominantly in the Global North)<\/a>, countries need to shape food environments to encourage large segments of the population to change to their diets that include more plant-based food and less animal protein. This should go hand-in-hand with concrete plans for a just transition for farmers trapped in an exploitative relationship with Big Livestock, through shifting subsidies to support a transition<\/a> towards agroecological farming practices<\/a> so as to move away from intensive livestock rearing in giant factory farms. We need vibrant rural communities with more farms and less livestock to benefit biodiversity and the climate.<\/p>\n\n

It is mind-boggling that the fate of food could be controlled so profoundly by corporate actors.  The way we produce food affects us all, and we can’t let solutions proposed behind closed doors<\/a> dictate how we nourish ourselves and what we put on our tables.<\/p>\n\n

\"Demonstration
Greenpeace Denmark protests along with local citizens in the small village of Rislev at Southern Zealand against the threats of increasing factory farming.
\u00a9 Erik Albertsen \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Sophie Nodzenski is a Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Greenpeace International.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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